Pandas, Freckles, and Gossip, Oh My!

You might ask why I bothered watching Kung Fu Panda. It's a fair question. But after the Panda beat Wall-E in all the Animation Guild's awards, I was curious to see what would be losing to the robot come Oscar night. Getting past its obvious inferiority to the Pixar masterpiece, it's a surprisingly enjoyable watch, as far as straight-out kids movies go. Certainly if I was to take a kid to a movie, I could do far worse. The movie's best selling point is the animation. The various animated fight scenes do look really, really cool. I'm sure that's what the animators saw in it.

The Panda also stands out for its rather odd voice casting. Jack Black brings a little too much Tenacious D to his titular slacker. Angelina Jolie's voice has little enough personality you might think her Tigress is animatronic. Dustin Hoffman isn't the first name to come to mind when you hear "kung fu master." Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu are the token Asians in a movie set in China. And David Cross and Seth Rogen are clearly just there for the paycheck (seriously, Monsters vs. Aliens will be Rogen's 3rd animated movie. He really loves the easy money). Kung Fu Panda's not necessary viewing for anyone, but it's a perfectly nice way to waste some time.


Now to shift gears completely, Entertainment Weekly's TV critic, Ken Tucker, wrote this morning that he considers Jack's partner, FBI Agent Renee Walker, to be 24's weakest link this season. He calls her a "wimpy sentimentalist," a "sap," and even goes so far as to call her this season's Kim Bauer. Now, I personally think he's being rather hard on Freckles. Finding it difficult to hold a mother and baby at gunpoint seems like a rather reasonable response. Jack used to have some conscience issues once upon a time as well.

Now, I'm not saying she ranks on the list of memorable 24 characters, but how can you call her the weakest link with so many others to choose from? All Monotone does is make googly eyes at Uglier Sarah Jessica Parker and annoy everyone. Boring Boss seems to be the most extreme justification of torture, just because you'd never want to agree with someone like that. But the award for this season's Kim Bauer goes to the First Gentleman. Acting stupid and getting himself kidnapped? No contest.

Quick recap of Monday night's episode: Jack tries to become besties with his 3rd US president. Do you think when he asked President Taylor to "ask around" about him, he was referring to the dead and possibly dead Palmer brothers? Who else does he know that's still alive? Taylor eventually gives Jack his directive: find the First Gentleman within the hour. I like when 24 episodes have hourly goals; it gives them purpose. Plus, it meant the promise of a shoot-out at the end.

Meanwhile, Taylor lets Buchanan stick around and make policy decisions because she doesn't dare question the hair. Boring Boss enters the Jack Bauer Club...just to lecture everyone for the 8000th time about torture. Jack kills a guy because he's Jack Bauer. Freckles questions her desire to be Jack's torture apprentice for approximately one minute, 49 seconds. And Dubaku goes to confront his waitress girlfriend's wheelchair-bound sister for....reasons unknown. Seriously, does he actually plan on seeing the waitress again? Also, I think Uglier Sarah Jessica Parker is the mole. Otherwise what does she do?

Finally, the weekly gossip on Grey's Anatomy (why is the gossip so much better than the show? Watch any given episode to find that out). Costar James Pickens Jr. (The Chief) told Us Weekly that TR Knight and Katherine Heigl will both be leaving the show. Spoiler King Michael Ausiello at Entertanment Weekly says it's not a done deal, but it will likely happen sometime early next season.

Now, my first thought is to be happy for the actors. TR Knight's George has probably had around three lines an episode since episode four this season. Characters like "Nurse #8" have more screentime. Katherine Heigl's Izzie has had one of the stupidest subplots I've seen on any TV show in recent memory (you know which one I'm talking about). Watching the way these once-likable characters have been tossed aside is just sad, and both of the actors deserve to move on to bigger and better things.

But if they really leave, and only three of the original five interns remain, what's the point of even continuing the show? The show seemed to introduce a major new character every week, but the only one who survived was Army Doc. After another season, will there even be any Greys left? All I can say is I'm glad I stopped watching when I did.